Mrs Pike: A True Story

Once upon a time - and this is more or less a true story - there was a lady called Mrs Pike.

Mrs Pike lived in a lovely new-brick bungalow in Lime Tree Gardens and had a dachshund called Gretchen, an H-reg Alfa Romeo and two lava lamps. Mrs Pike had always been keen on having The Latest Thing. When colour TVs came in, she put her order in straight away, and she always had the very newest model of sports car, never mind about her cataracts.

Why, as far as she knew, she'd also been the first person in Nottingham to get the magnetic soap dish. The magnet soaps were a little dearer than normal soaps but, with the smart little pansy transfers, they made the most ideal guest soaps. Not that Mrs Pike ever had any guests - she wasn't really a people person, never had been, she preferred the TV.

But how proud Mrs Pike was of her possessions! And of her appearance. She wasn't about to reveal her age to anyone, but she still varnished her nails with Elizabeth Arden pearly pink and powdered her face and wore a Persian lamb coat when the weather called for it.

Her kitchen boasted a sunburst wall clock and the latest foil-bubble wallpaper, which - and this was ever so handy - you just wiped down. Only the other day, she'd given it a going-over, amazed at how much grease it had accumulated just from a bit of frying now and then when she fancied it.

If she hadn't been a well-placed widow, Mrs Pike reckoned she could have been an interior decorator for the fabulously wealthy - choosing colour schemes and mixing and matching and so forth. Even the shop-girl at Griffin & Spalding, where she purchased her three-piece suite complete with matching pouffes, had praised her taste. In her lounge, she had a lot of mauve. At Christmas she even had a mauve metallic tree with matching baubles. She'd always been a one for mauve, preferring it to blue, which reminded her too much of the sky. Mrs Pike wasn't keen on nature - never had been, couldn't see the point of all that muck and fuss.

It suited Mrs Pike fine that she was a widow, because she had never been able to abide her husband. He had always been a drinker and it was his own fault entirely that he'd passed away. She was on the point of divorcing him (and fighting him for every penny he had) when she found out he was a goner. Cirrhosis of the liver. This was in the November.

"Put it this way," said the specialist, who had quite a sense of humour as it turned out, "I wouldn't go to the trouble of buying him any Christmas presents."

Mrs Pike had a bit of a chuckle at that. But then, wasn't she having the last laugh? A husband-free Christmas! A husband-free rest of her life! She fancied a winter cruise - if only she could do something with Geoffrey, who was seven and, frankly, a bit of a fly in the ointment.

She told him to please keep out of her way with his long face - otherwise, she'd phone up Mrs White, who would come and take him away in her big black van. Mrs White wasn't real, of course, but Geoffrey didn't know that. Sometimes, she actually picked up the phone and dialled their own number and conducted a nice pretend-scary conversation with Mrs White.

"Is that you, Mrs W? I have a naughty boy here - could you come and take him away please? What's that? Oh, yes, you'd better bring the spanking strap - oh, hold on a moment, Mrs W, I think he's apologising _ it's all right, Mrs W, I won't be needing you to come, not for the time being, thanks anyway..."

Even before her husband was safely nailed in his coffin, Mrs Pike set about reclaiming the space he'd taken up in her life, shoving all his mess and rubbish into crates ready for burning. Part of her was itching to start the bonfire and just get on with it, but instinct told her it was better to wait. It was a bit of an anticlimax when he actually went - quietly, one bright Saturday morning, with a half-smile on his face. She couldn't help feeling a wave of irritation at that soppy little smile - until the doctor assured her it was just a medical thing, something the dead do without knowing it.

Lime Tree Gardens was the third such bungalow Mrs Pike had lived in, not by choice, mind you. It was in a quiet cul-de-sac with a newsagent's on the corner. Mrs Lesley, the woman next door, had the hairiest legs - you'd think she'd have them seen to.

The reason Mrs Pike never lived anywhere for long was that she had to move whenever Geoffrey did. Her irritating child had grown into a surprisingly attractive man, and it was to get at his wife Marie that Mrs Pike followed them around the city. Not that it was Geoffrey's fault that they upped sticks all the time. No, it was Marie who had the itchy feet. It was living all those years with an outdoor toilet and then suddenly marrying into money.

"Don't you think Geoffrey deserves a bit of freedom now that he's in his forties?" Marie snapped at her one day.

Mrs Pike went white. "He lived with me until he was 32," she reminded her. "He's always been a good boy."

Mrs Pike had stomach trouble on and off for days after Marie's outburst. "Is it such a sin," she wrote in a letter to Marie, "to want to have my own son close at hand? In case anything untoward should happen?"

Geoffrey rang her - sullen-sounding, as though Marie had pushed him into it: "What's all this untoward business, Mother?"

"My hernia," she stuttered, "I never know when it's going to play up."

And she wasn't lying. Sometimes all it took was a slightly stringy piece of chicken, an unexpected bit of bacon. Not that she knowingly ate the fat - she always took off the rind with a pair of scissors and put it out for the tits.

Each new bungalow Mrs Pike lived in, she named herself. She had a flair for it - and she liked to think that something in this world would outlast her. She'd lived in a nice place off Mapperley Plains which she'd called "Saigon" - a topical reference to something she'd heard on the news. The next one she named "The Point", since it was right on the furthermost tip of a triangular new development. Marie had been expecting for the second time when she moved in there. She hated Marie Like That - couldn't look her in the eye with that awful smug lump bulging out of her.

When she was expecting, Marie's game was to take up as much of Geoffrey's time as possible, claiming sickness and the like. At "The Point", this had been especially inconvenient as Mrs Pike had once heard a noise in the night.

"I'm really nervous at nights," she said - and begged Geoffrey to come and sleep over with her, just until she got used to it. So, every night for a week, he came and slept in the spare room. It was marvellous - they'd share a tin of Campbell's soup, just like in the old days, and then watch Bernard Braden on TV. Then - oh my, what a coincidence! - Marie managed to go into labour ten days early and the honeymoon was over, so to speak.

"Couldn't you get a guard dog?" Marie moaned, suggesting a security firm that some friend of hers had used.

"Oooh, I'd be ever so nervous of a great big dog," Mrs Pike protested, knocking that one firmly on the head.

"What about a little dog then?" Geoffrey suggested. "Just an alarm system, as it were?"

And that's how she got landed with Gretchen - not that she'd be without her now, of course. She soon had her lapping sweetened tea out of a saucer and then Gretchen'd insist on having the last two chocs whenever she had a box of Milk Tray. Mrs Pike couldn't abide Montelimar and certainly couldn't tackle the nougat with her dentures.

So Gretchen's teeth went first and then she went all diabetic, which affected her sight. And the blindness made her very tired. She'd nap on and off , and sleep through any noise. "Not much good as a guard dog," Mrs Pike told her son with a degree of satisfaction.

At Christmas, Geoffrey and Marie came over with the children, and Mrs Pike had once again to stomach the sight of that great fat belly all swelled up to bursting - a third one was expected in January.

"I hated giving birth to Geoffrey," Mrs Pike said, when Marie helped herself just like that to more bread sauce. "It was just like going to the toilet, only worse."

"I suppose I'm lucky," Marie boasted. "I just relax and they pop out!" And she leaned over and touched Mrs Pike's sleeve as she spoke.

Quickly, Mrs Pike pulled away her arm. A shudder ran the length of her body. She hadn't been touched by anyone since the war. The feeling made her want to cry and vomit, both at the same time.

When Geoffrey and Marie divorced, she didn't bother to suppress her delight. She poured herself a Dubonnet and lemonade and treated herself to a handful of those pink cocktail biscuits.

On the Thursday after he actually told her, Geoffrey came over for a late soup and cheese supper. Soft white rolls, Lurpak, Dairylea spread.

"You married beneath you," she told him during Sale Of The Century. "You want to watch out That Woman doesn't take you to the cleaners."

Geoffrey looked at her and said nothing.

Then he lit a Silk Cut and started answering Nicholas Parsons' questions. He was good at general knowledge, and he got all but one right.

Mrs Pike felt a flutter of pride at the base of her throat. Or was it the cheese so late at night? On the pouffe at her feet, Gretchen snorted in her sleep.

"That animal's poorly," Geoffrey remarked.

"Rubbish," she said. "It's called old age."

But she caught herself smiling at him. The little exchange gave her so much pleasure.

Now she didn't need to worry at night, because Geoffrey moved back in, keeping two suitcases and his valet chair in the spare room.

"Just until I get myself sorted," he said, because the house was up for sale and he said he couldn't face the emptiness without the kiddies.

Mrs Pike hadn't seen the kiddies since the split and neither, from what she could gather, had her son. But she had the photographs on the sideboard - except she'd cut Her out with a pair of nail scissors.

"She's turned them against me," Geoffrey told her. "The doctor's given me something. For depression." For some reason, that word - "depression" - sliced through Mrs Pike's heart. Made her want to catch her breath.

"You're all right," she said brightly, "you're just not the marrying type, that's all. Never have been. I should have spotted it."

"I'm not sleeping," Geoffrey said on another occasion. "I don't know what's going to happen to the business." When he spoke like that, he reminded her of the weedy little boy who'd trail around after her, making her want so badly to kick him.

"Let's watch the Eurovision Song Contest," said Mrs Pike. "I listened to our entry and it's not at all bad."

When the police knocked on Mrs Pike's back door, it was very late. So late that she'd taken out her teeth, removed her wig and hearing aid, and had nothing on but a brushed nylon gown under which her flesh always seemed to have a mind of its own.

She'd had mulligatawny soup for supper and it was repeating on her - sometimes an early warning sign of Hernia Trouble.

She pulled on a shower cap, which was all she had to hand, and made her way to the door. She couldn't think why they'd gone round the back when the front porch had a light on. She clipped on the chain and opened it a crack. She knew something was wrong when she heard radios cutting in and out, saw the clouds of several men's breath against the passage brickwork.

"Mrs Pike?" The man spoke too softly, too queryingly. She disliked him immediately. She nodded, unwilling to open her mouth for the lack of teeth. "Sorry to disturb you so late at night. Can we come in?"

"Well -" she managed to croak, and unclipped the chain and stood there, blinking, in the kitchen, her mind all over the place.

"I'm sorry," said the man, who was ever so young - even younger than Geoffrey. "Would you like to sit down. Only we've some very bad news for you, I'm afraid."

"I'd prefer to stand," she said, not wanting to give him any leeway.

"Your son, Geoffrey. He died earlier tonight. He was found at his office. He hanged himself. I'm so sorry."

"Oh my Lord," she said. And smiled.

She could not think. She felt silly. She felt she shouldn't be told such a big thing while wearing a shower cap.

"Mrs Pike? I really think you should sit down."

She felt her lips going wider with the smile and the shock of it. Like a sneeze, she felt a laugh coming. "He hasn't gone and done that, has he?" she said. "The silly monkey. When he had everything to live for."

Mrs Pike was never one to dwell on things. She continued, as she always had, to mooch around her bungalow and pet Gretchen and watch TV with the sound turned well up - never mind about the neighbours.

In fact, the neighbours did their best, she had to admit that. Hairy Mrs Lesley brought round a piece of apple pie on a plate, even bothered to put on a doily. "Don't worry about returning the plate," she said. "There's no hurry, you take your time."

But Mrs Pike couldn't stand other people's clutter around the place and so she ate the pie, even though the crust was soggy, and then she rinsed the plate in cold water and left it on the Lesleys' doorstep.

Once the funeral was over, she tried to forget all about Marie and the children. One of the kiddies sent her a pair of homemade slippers at Christmas - tatty velvet they were, with silly baubles stitched on all over - and they were much too big, so she sent them back without a note - what was the point?

Then, one evening, as Mrs Pike crossed the hall to get something from her bedroom, she got a terrible shock. There, next to the umbrella stand, was a person - a man, dirty and unkempt, in sports footwear and an anoraky thing.

An intruder.

A burglar.

Mrs Pike tried to scream, but found all her air pockets locked. She gasped. She growled. "Police!" she finally spewed and, her eyes on the figure, staggered backwards. The man, whose face was obscured by the silty dark, groped behind him and let himself out of the front door. The front door, what a cheek!

The police came round. They took their time. It seemed like they'd been there only yesterday. Mrs Pike kept her dignity, sat with her hands in her lap. "Did he take anything?" the young man, a mere child with his spots and his sticky-out Adam's apple, asked her.

"I still have my handbag," Mrs Pike began, then stopped. Suddenly she couldn't remember what else she had. What else she'd ever had. "My mind's a blank," she whispered. In a panic, she took them round, retracing her steps. "I was just finishing my Horlicks," she said, showing them the exact spot where she'd been sitting before she got up. She showed them her cup. "This one's mine, this cup here."

"The dog didn't alert you then?" said the man, as Gretchen roused herself and waddled over.

"The dog's poorly," Mrs Pike said. "And a bit stuck up." She'd meant that last bit as a joke, but no one laughed.

The men went away - nothing resolved.

After that, Mrs Pike kept the lights on, even at night. Electricity burned in that bungalow around the clock - a yellow, throbbing force that sometimes felt like company.

Early in January, Gretchen got a high temperature. The dog's nose was hot and dry. Each breath seemed more snatched and uncertain. She'd not touched a drop of anything for two days when Mrs Pike wrapped her in a mohair blanket and took her to the vet. Who said he was very sorry, but the kindest thing was to let her go."Let her go?" Mrs Pike repeated numbly.

"Put her to sleep - put her down. I'm sorry, Mrs Pike, but I think it's for the best."

The vet asked Mrs Pike if she'd like to have a few moments alone with the dog to say goodbye, but she snapped her handbag open and shut and said she couldn't see the point. She must have looked distressed or something, because the vet put his big hand on her shoulder, moved it slowly up and down.

It was the second time Mrs Pike had been touched since the war and the sensation upset her. She recognised the feeling, felt it take root in a way that was almost familiar, but couldn't for the life of her place it. Was it good or bad? And if it was good, then why did it feel so much like pain? She moved away, quietly furious.

She drove herself home and when she got in the kitchen she sat and looked at the sunburst clock on the foil wall. Ten past four. Yes, Gretchen would definitely be gone by now. That was that, then.

Mrs Pike put her head in her hands.

And wondered what you did next.

· Julie Myerson was born in 1960. She is the author of five novels, among them Sleepwalking, Me And The Fatman, and Something Might Happen . She is currently working on a book about her house in Clapham, exploring the lives of all the people who have lived there.